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Hofmann Gave Biochem an Adrenaline Rush

Hurting? The hormone endorphin will dull the brain’s
perception of pain. But while they’re essential to human self-preservation,
little was known about hormones when Klaus
Hofmann began studying them.

Scientists knew there were two main classes of hormones:
steroid hormones, which are derived from cholesterol, and peptide hormones,
composed of amino acids. But their molecular structures were just beginning to
be understood when Hofmann joined Pitt’s chemistry department in 1944. Eight
years later, he became chair of the new biochemistry department in the School
of Medicine.

Hofmann went on to synthesize adrenocorticotropic hormone
(ACTH), which helps to preserve crucial brain function during infections and traumas.
Before then, no one had synthesized a molecule as large as ACTH, which is 39
amino acids long.

A demanding but caring teacher, Hofmann (1911-1995)
reinvented his biochemistry course for Pitt first-year medical students every
time he taught it, to keep his perspective and material fresh. He destroyed
each lecture’s preparatory notes to ensure he never gave the same talk twice. But
while he drove his students, the faculty members he supervised—and, above all,
himself—hard, Hofmann also appreciated the finer things in life, such as playing
the violin in string quartets and sipping good bourbon.

Hofmann won election to the National Academy of Sciences,
among many other honors, but he advised colleagues, “You’re wrong to go after
prizes; the only real way to do science is for the fun of it.” He resigned as department
chair in 1964 to direct his own research institute at Pitt, the Protein
Research Laboratory, where he pursued his work with ACTH, isolated the protein
receptor for insulin, and determined how a peptide binds to a protein—a
fundamental discovery that he considered his greatest achievement.